Friday, March 22, 2013

Vintage Los Angeles

Looking for history in Los Angeles is a bit of a challenge. Like movie stars, Los Angeles tends to want everything younger, fresher, newer. Instead of restoring our city, we move on to the next new development, tearing down or paving over anything that gets in the way.

Because of this, I find old photographs of Los Angeles intriguing. I love seeing what different areas used to look like, and also playing a version of "Where's Waldo," where you spot still existing buildings that have survived the years.

I've been following a great site on Facebook called Vintage Los Angeles. They post great photographs and stories relating to Los Angeles history. Today they had a post about the Hotel Alexandria in downtown Los Angeles that I found absolutely intriguing.

The short version of the story is that a wing of this hotel was completely sealed off in 1938, turning it into a time capsule, of sorts. This part of the hotel was built on a separately owned parcel from the main hotel and the two owners got into a dispute. (For the longer story and some photos, go to this October 2012 story from the Los Angeles Times.)

A developer recently purchased the sealed up portion of the hotel and plans to turn it into condos. The crazy thing is that as of the time of the story, even the developer had not unsealed the rooms. I tried looking for updates on this story, but came up with nothing. Fascinating stuff! I wonder how many other "time capsules" there are in the downtown LA?